5 Prominent NYSE Stocks That Hit 52-Week Highs Monday

It was a red Monday on Wall Street, with the NYSE Composite sliding by 0.49%, while the S&P 500 was off by 0.30%, the Dow Jones declined by 0.42%, and the Nasdaq dipped by 0.05%. Nonetheless, several NYSE stocks managed to hit their yearly highs on Monday, led by Fabrinet (NYSE:FN), which jumped by 7% during the session.

We’ll take a look at the performance of Fabrinet in this article, as well as four other NYSE stocks that hit 52-Weeks on Monday: Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE:BIG), Centene Corp (NYSE:CNC), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE). We’ll also use SEC filings to see what hedge funds think about these stocks.

At Insider Monkey, we track around 765 hedge funds and institutional investors. Through extensive backtests, we have determined that imitating some of the stocks that these investors are collectively bullish on can help retail investors generate double digits of alpha per year. The key is to focus on the small-cap picks of these funds, which are usually less followed by the broader market and allow for larger price inefficiencies (see more details).

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Big Year Leads to Record High for Big Lots

We’ll start with Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE:BIG), which gained 0.99% on Monday and pushed to its 52-week and all-time high of $53.83 at the very end of the trading session. It’s been a big year for the stock, which is up by 39% in 2016. A chunk of that damage was done on May 27 when shares gained 14% following the release of the company’s first quarter results, which beat estimates. The company’s full year EPS guidance also came in ahead of expectations, even on its low-end. The discount retailer has been successful in putting a greater emphasis on furniture sales and offering financing options to customers to ensure more successful sales.

Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE:BIG) shares were owned by 20 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey on March 31.

Has IBM Finally Turned the Corner?

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) appears poised to end its three-year losing streak on the stock market, as its shares have surged by 18% this year and reached their 52-week high of $162.88 on Monday. Although Big Blue hasn’t yet completely stemmed its revenue bleeding, sales fell by just 2.7% year-over-year to $20.24 billion in the second quarter as its cloud, analytics, and security segments all show promise. Analysts nonetheless have a cautious view of the stock, with the consensus rating among 27 leading analysts standing at ‘Hold’, though several have raised their price targets on the stock recently.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) is a longtime favorite stock of Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway, which owned 81.23 million shares of the company on March 31.

We’ll check out three more stocks that hit 52-weeks on Monday on page two.

Centene Shares Looking Healthy Again

After a big run-up from the beginning of 2013 through the middle of 2015, Centene Corp (NYSE:CNC) hit a wall for nearly a year. However, the stock has finally broken free of its restraints in the past two months, which culminated in it hitting its 52-week high of $75.57 on Monday, a day ahead of the release of its second quarter results. The healthcare plan provider has grown into a $12 billion company through a host of contracts and acquisitions and doesn’t appear set to rest on its laurels just yet, having made a bid for some of Aetna Inc (NYSE:AET)’s assets before that company’s planned merger with Humana Inc (NYSE:HUM) was scuttled by the DOJ. While those assets may no longer be in play at the moment, it’s clear Centene has a big appetite for further growth.

Among the hedge funds in our database, 47 owned shares of Centene Corp (NYSE:CNC) at the end of March, a jump of 20 quarter-over-quarter.

Upgrade Helps Hewlett Packard Hop to Yearly High

Following a post-Brexit tumble, shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE) have steadily pared  their losses, hitting their 52-week high of $20.49 on Monday. The stock has been strong since late-May save for the Brexit stumble, as the company continues to make sound progress on its reorganization. Helping the company reach its 52-week high today was Citigroup, which upgraded the stock to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’, and hiked its price target on it to $25 from $20.

Stephen J. Errico’s Locust Wood Capital Advisers opened a position of 828,495 shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE) during the second quarter.

Bullish Report Pushes Fabrinet Higher

As mentioned, Fabrinet (NYSE:FN) had a big day, posting gains of 7% on Monday to push to its 52-week high of $41.20. The gains materialized after Needham & Company analyst Alex Henderson reiterated his ‘Buy’ rating on the stock and upped his price target on it to $48 from $45. Mr. Henderson believes that estimates look conservative and that the company will have plenty of positive earnings surprises in store for market participants in the coming quarters. Fabrinet shares have gained 123% in the last year but still trade at a modest Enterprise Value/EBITDA ratio of 12-times.

Small-cap investor Chuck Royce owned 1.58 million shares of Fabrinet (NYSE:FN) valued at $51.18 million at the end of March.

Disclosure: None